Prosocial Bonuses Increase Employee Satisfaction and
Team Performance
Lalin Anik1*, Lara B. Aknin2, Michael I. Norton3, Elizabeth W. Dunn4, Jordi Quoidbach5
1 Marketing Department, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America, 2 Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser
University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, 3 Marketing Department, Harvard Business School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, 4 Department of
Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 5 Department of Economics and Business, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain
Abstract
In three field studies, we explore the impact of providing employees and teammates with prosocial bonuses, a novel type of
bonus spent on others rather than on oneself. In Experiment 1, we show that prosocial bonuses in the form of donations to
charity lead to happier and more satisfied employees at an Australian bank. In Experiments 2a and 2b, we show that
prosocial bonuses in the form of expenditures on teammates lead to better performance in both sports teams in Canada
and pharmaceutical sales teams in Belgium. These results suggest that a minor adjustment to employee bonuses – shifting
the focus from the self to others – can produce measurable benefits for employees and organizations.
Citation: Anik L, Aknin LB, Norton MI, Dunn EW, Quoidbach J (2013) Prosocial Bonuses Increase Employee Satisfaction and Team Performance. PLoS ONE 8(9):
e75509. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0075509
Editor: Pablo Branas-Garza, Middlesex University London, United Kingdom
Received May 8, 2013; Accepted August 15, 2013; Published September 18, 2013
Copyright: ß 2013 Anik et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: The authors have no support or funding to report.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
* E-mail: lalin.anik@duke.edu
ing the benefits of improving employee’s social lives in the
workplace. Finally, we examine the impact of these prosocial
bonuses on employee satisfaction and team performance, by
reporting results from three ‘‘proof of concept’’ field experiments
conducted in different countries.
Introduction
A recent survey revealed that just 46% of Americans are
satisfied with their jobs, the lowest level recorded by the
Conference Board [1] in the past two decades. Yet over the same
time frame, Americans have come to spend more and more of
their time at work [2]. Taken together, this trend suggests that
employees are becoming more and more unhappy more and more
of the time at work, hardly a formula for a healthy and productive
workplace. In this increasingly negative environment, how can
employers incentivize their employees to increase their happiness,
job satisfaction, and ultimately their job performance?
Certainly, designing effective incentive schemes is a central
challenge for a wide range of organizations, from multi-national
corporations to academic departments. In pursuit of identifying
the most effective strategies, organizations have devised an
impressive variety of such bonuses, from fixed salaries to payper-performance, from commissions to end-of-year bonuses. We
suggest that the wide variety in such schemes masks a shared
assumption: That the best way to motivate employees is to reward
them with money that they then spend on themselves. We propose
an alternative means of incentivizing employees – what we term
‘‘prosocial bonuses’’ – in which organizations provide employees
with bonuses used to engage in prosocial actions towards charities
and co-workers.
Below, we first review research exploring existing methods of
increasing workplace performance, including individual-based and
team-based bonus schemes, which tend to reveal both benefits and
unexpected costs. We then briefly review the literature on the
benefits of improving social life in the work place, such as
increasing employee citizenship behaviors. Next, we argue that
prosocial bonuses mitigate some of the issues that arise with
individual- and team-based compensation schemes, while retainPLOS ONE | www.plosone.org
Individual- and Team-Based Incentive Schemes
When asked why they work, individuals most commonly reply
‘‘money’’ [3]. But what is the effect of money on employees’ job
satisfaction and performance? On one hand, monetary bonuses
have been found to produce positive effects – increased
productivity, effort, performance, and job satisfaction [4–9].
Individual bonuses increase job satisfaction in part because
employees see their time and effort being rewarded [10–13].
From pay-per-performance to piece rate compensation schemes to
profit sharing to bonuses, individual-based incentive schemes can
lead to improved employee outcomes [8,14–18].
On the other hand, individual incentives – such as large bonuses
– are often surprisingly ineffective in increasing employee morale
and productivity [19–20]. Rewarding individual employees can
produce negative outcomes by eroding workplace cohesion [21],
as employees become reluctant to share information with others
even at the expense of reduced output [22]. Relative comparisons
at the individual level create competition which results in
decreased trust, sharing and teamwork [23–25]; in Drago and
Turnbull [26], for example, tournament-based compensation led
to decreased helping behavior and increased the potential for
sabotaging other workers.
In an effort to prevent such negative competitive dynamics that
can result from individual-based bonuses, organizations often turn
to incentivizing employees for their collective performance,
encouraging cooperation and teamwork rather than competition
[27–29]. Indeed, a growing body of research suggests that
1
September 2013 | Volume 8 | Issue 9 | e75509
Prosocial Bonuses
interpersonal relationships enable employees to experience their
work as important and meaningful [30–36]. Furthermore,
evidence suggests that interpersonal relationships often enhance
employees’ motivations, opportunities, and resources at work [37–
40]. Positive interpersonal relationships with coworkers provide
social support and a buffer from stressful events [41–43], which in
turn predict team commitment [44], job engagement [45–46], and
job satisfaction [47–49].
In some cases, team-based compensation schemes have been
shown to raise this sense of cooperation and cohesiveness between
team members [22,50], inducing them to exert additional effort
toward helping one another [51–54]. Importantly, such increased
cooperation due to interdependent rewards has been shown to
improve team performance [55], suggesting that team-based
bonuses may be an effective means of improving employee social
life. As with individual-based bonuses, however, team-based
bonuses offer important advantages but also potential drawbacks
– such as free riding [56], motivational loss due to the perception
of inequity [57], and suboptimization of team goals [58]. Thus
while team-based bonuses have the potential to improve relationships between co-workers, they can also lead to ‘‘antisocial’’
behaviors – and decreased employee outcomes.
Overview of the Present Research
We examine whether randomly assigning employees to engage
in prosocial behavior – via prosocial bonuses – can have a causal
impact on employee well-being, job satisfaction, and job performance. In our field studies, some employees and teammates are
given non-contingent ‘‘prosocial bonuses’’ – money that they
receive as a windfall that they are encouraged to spend in a
prosocial manner. In Experiment 1, we give some employees of a
company the opportunity to donate money to charity, examining
the impact of this intervention on both employee well-being and
job satisfaction. In Experiments 2a and 2b, we move beyond
assessment of psychological constructs to behavioral measures; by
comparing prosocial versus personal bonuses, we investigate their
impact on team performance in the two different contexts of sales
teams and sports teams.
Materials and Methods
Ethics Statement
Data collection for Experiment 1 was approved by the Harvard
University Behavioral Research Ethics Board. Data collection for
Experiment 2a was approved by the University of British
Columbia’s Behavioral Research Ethics Board (B06-0557). Data
collection for Experiment 2b was overseen by University of Liège.
Written informed consent was obtained for all studies.
Prosocial Bonuses
We suggest that prosocial bonuses offer an alternative approach
that has the potential to provide some of the same benefits as
team-based compensation – increased social support, cohesion,
and performance – while carrying fewer drawbacks. Research
suggests that the desire to help others is a need deeply rooted in
human nature [59–60], and that giving to others has a causal
impact on increasing happiness and life satisfaction [61–62]. At
the organizational level, previous correlational research suggests
that prosocial behavior in the workplace – often termed citizenship
behaviors – is linked to employee morale and performance [63]:
the extent to which employees perceive themselves and their
organizations as prosocial predicts organizational commitment
[64–66]. We suggest that prosocial bonuses can have a causal
impact on employee satisfaction and performance, such that
providing employees with money to help others would have a
greater organizational impact than providing employees with
money to spend on themselves.
We note that we are not the first researchers to examine the
interplay of incentives and prosocial behavior; indeed, several
investigations point to the potential risk in mixing money with
altruism [67]: paying children to collect money for charity
decreases their efforts [68], publicly rewarding adults for earning
money for charity also decreases effort [69], and paying friends to
help with a move reduces the amount of help received [70]. Unlike
these kinds of ‘‘prosocial incentives,’’ however, the prosocial
bonuses we provide in the experiments below are not contingent
upon or linked to any behavior – employees are simply given
money by the firm to spend prosocially. In this sense, our
investigation uses a version of a ‘‘reciprocity by proxy’’ strategy
outlined by Goldstein, Griskevicius, and Cialdini [71]. In this
investigation, guests who were informed that a hotel had already
given a donation to an environmental cause were more likely to
reuse their towels than those who were told the hotel would make
a donation only if they reused their towels; their results showed that
providing the prosocial bonus up front was more effective than
linking the incentive directly to the behavior. Following this logic,
we predicted that offering employees prosocial bonuses that were
not linked to any current behavior or expectation of future
behavior would be effective in increasing employee satisfaction.
PLOS ONE | www.plosone.org
Experiment 1
In Experiment 1, we examine the impact of prosocial bonuses
on the most widely studied attitude in the field of organizational
behavior, job satisfaction – broadly defined, employees’ subjective
evaluation of their work experience [72–73]. The large number of
investigations examining factors that influence job satisfaction
have tended to focus on two fundamental determinants: (1) aspects
of employees, such as individual differences in self-esteem or
education [74–78] and (2) aspects of the job itself, such as
communicating clear task goals and giving feedback when those
goals are achieved [79–84]. Adding a novel contribution to the
literature on job satisfaction, we examine the impact of prosocial
bonuses. To do so, we assigned some employees of a large bank to
receive a prosocial bonus in the form of money from the company
to donate to charity, and examined the impact of spending this
bonus on job satisfaction, compared to employees not given this
bonus.
Participants. A total of 300 employees at an Australian bank
were invited by their employer to participate in an experiment;
121 of these employees did not respond to the initial email and
were therefore not included in our sample. Of the 179 employees
that did respond to the invitation, 46 employees completed only
the Time 1 survey in which they reported their age, gender, salary,
years at company as well as their happiness and job satisfaction.
These 46 participants did not differ from our main sample in terms
of age, gender, income or years at company, Time 1 happiness or
job satisfaction (ts,1.13, ps ..26). Employees completing only the
Time 1 survey were not included in the analyses below, leaving a
final sample of 133 bank employees (59 percent female;
Ncontrol = 48, N$25 = 41, and N$50 = 44) with a wide range of
income, age, and years at the company (Table 1).
Design and procedure. On November 17, 2008, all
employees received an email from their employer asking them to
participate in a multi-stage experiment on workplace attitudes.
Employees were assured that their participation was voluntary and
that their responses would be anonymous. If employees followed a
link indicating their willingness to participate, they were directed
to the Time 1 survey. On the Time 1 survey, participants reported
2
September 2013 | Volume 8 | Issue 9 | e75509
Prosocial Bonuses
mance; we expected that compared to personal bonuses, prosocial
bonuses would have a larger impact on job performance.
In addition to documenting the impact of prosocial bonuses on
team performance, we also widened our investigation in three
ways. First, we sought to extend the time course of our experiment
to examine the longer-term effects of prosocial bonuses. In
Experiment 1, we measured job satisfaction immediately after the
prosocial bonus, which we acknowledge is likely when the impact
of giving was at its greatest. We assess more delayed or extended
benefits of prosocial bonuses in Experiments 2a and 2b. Second,
we explored the impact of a different form of prosocial bonuses; to
do so, we redirected generous spending from external charitable
causes to co-workers and teammates within the organization.
Third, Experiment 1 compared the effects of prosocial bonuses to
a control condition; in Experiments 2a and 2b we directly
compared the impact of prosocial and personal bonuses, by giving
members of some teams money to spend on their teammates and
members of other teams money to spend on themselves. Due to
logistical reasons, a control condition could not be included in
Experiments 2a and 2b.
Table 1. Employee demographics (Experiment 1).
Age (years) %
Income ($AUS)
%
Years at
Company
%
21–29
23.3
$20,001–$50,000
10
,1
14
30–39
38.3
$50,001–$100,000
42
1–2
18
40–49
26.3
$100,001– $150,000
34
3–5
21
50–59
12
$150,001 – $200,000
11
6–10
12
$200,001 – $500,000
3
11–15
12
.15
23
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0075509.t001
their gender, age, and salary. Because this was a field experiment
conducted during a work day, we asked participants to complete
single-item measures of happiness and job satisfaction at Time 1
and Time 2. Participants rated how happy they felt on the 5-point
scale (1: very slightly or not at all to 5: extremely) used in the Positive
and Negative Affect Schedule [85]. This single-item measure has
been previously shown to be highly correlated with the full scale
(r = .48, p,.001) [86], and similar single-item measures of
happiness have been widely used in the well-being literature
[87–88]. To assess job satisfaction, participants completed a
measure drawn from the Michigan Organizational Assessment
Questionnaire, rating their agreement with the statement ‘‘All in
all I’m satisfied with my job’’ on a 7-point scale (1: strongly disagree to
7: strongly agree; 89). Single-item measures of job satisfaction have
been shown to correlate with longer assessments, and yield
adequate validity [90–92].
Two weeks later, on December 3, 2008, based on random
assignment, employees in the control condition were sent an email
that directed them to complete the Time 2 survey. Employees
randomly assigned to one of the two experimental conditions were
informed that the company had given them a charity voucher
worth approximately $25 or $50 US at the time to donate to a
charity of their choice. Participants in the two charity voucher
conditions followed a link that took them to a charity website
(KarmaCurrency.com.au) where they could donate to a wide
range of charities of their choice. After completing the donation,
participants were automatically redirected to the Time 2 survey.
Voucher redemption data shows that about half of the employees
redeemed their charity vouchers on the day they received it
(December 3, 2008). The remaining vouchers were redeemed
during the following two weeks with the last redemption on
December 18, 2008.
Experiment 2a: Sports Teams Methods
Participants. Sixty-two students (83 percent male;
Mage = 20.49, SD = 2.6) on 11 recreational dodge ball teams
(Mmembers = 4.71, SD = 1.4) completed the experiment at the
University of British Columbia for a chance to win $100. Potential
participants were informed that one person would be selected to
win the $100 cash prize.
Procedure. Teams were approached in person by a research
assistant in a recreation center on campus and invited to
participate in a study. Members of participating teams completed
a basic demographics survey in which they noted their age,
gender, annual income and student status. Each team was
randomly assigned to the personal or prosocial bonuses condition.
Within each team, approximately one-third of team members
were randomly selected to receive $20 USD (,$20 CDN) to spend
over the subsequent week. Participants in the personal bonus
condition were instructed to ‘‘spend the money on a bill, expense,
or gift for yourself’’, while participants in the prosocial bonus
condition were instructed to ‘‘spend the money on a teammate’’
who was randomly selected. Both personal and prosocial spending
instructions were presented in written form and then explained by
a research assistant to ensure participants understood the
instructions.
Team performance. Performance was assessed with the
percentage of games won out of total games played on the date of
the initial survey (Time 1) and approximately two weeks later
(Time 2). Only team level performance could be measured, as
individual players’ statistics were not collected by the recreational
dodge ball league.
Experiments 2a & 2b
Experiment 1 revealed that providing employees with the
opportunity to spend prosocial bonuses can yield two psychological benefits: increased happiness and job satisfaction. Indeed,
employees who donated $50 to charity on behalf of their company
reported increased happiness and job satisfaction. Do the benefits
of prosocial bonuses extend beyond employee well-being to
improving actual performance – and the organizations’ bottom
line? As with job satisfaction, previous research has focused on two
categories of predictors of job performance, some examining the
links between employees’ individual differences (e.g., their general
aptitude or conscientiousness) and their performance, and other
research examining how aspects of the job itself can improve or
undermine performance [77,93–96]. We suggest that prosocial
bonuses offer an additional approach to impacting job perforPLOS ONE | www.plosone.org
Experiment 2b: Sales Teams Methods
Participants. One hundred and twelve salespersons at a
Belgian pharmaceutical company were emailed by their Human
Resources Department with an invitation to take part in an
experiment. All of the salespersons indicated willingness to
participate and provided their demographic information. Twenty-four salespeople were excluded from the experiment for various
reasons. Specifically, for ten salespersons we could not get
performance data from the company. Some salespersons, for
example, were active in two different sales territories, sharing their
sales performance with multiple teams. Others were in charge of
special projects for which we could not have access to a
performance indicator. An additional fourteen salespersons who
3
September 2013 | Volume 8 | Issue 9 | e75509
Prosocial Bonuses
Table 2. Change in happiness and job satisfaction between Time 1 and Time 2 as a function of condition (Experiment 1).
Time 1
Time 2
Happiness
Job Satisfaction
Happiness
Job Satisfaction
Control Condition (N = 48)
3.48 (.83)
5.15 (1.50)
3.56 (.80)
5.25 (1.35)
$25 USD Condition (N = 41)
3.56 (.87)
5.37 (1.61)
3.51 (.95)
5.12 (1.35)
$50 USD Condition (N = 44)
3.52 (.70)
5.23 (1.29)
3.98 (.51)
5.55 (1.07)
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0075509.t002
sales team success is the total monthly sales collected by each
pharmaceutical sales team (in Euros) in the geographical region
under their purview. Therefore, we used monthly team sales as our
measure of team performance.
were team leaders were excluded as we wanted to examine giving
among peers, rather than between employees and supervisors. The
remaining 88 salespersons (50 percent male; Mage = 36.0, SD = 6.9)
working in 14 teams (Mmembers = 6.3, SD = 3.0) completed this
experiment in exchange for a chance to win an iPod. Participants
were assured that participation was voluntary and their responses
would remain confidential.
Design and Procedure. The pharmaceutical salespersons
worked in teams that were in charge of the same geographical
region. Although each salesperson worked alone, team members
would share strategic information about prospects (e.g., ‘‘You
should go to that business because the owner doesn’t like me’’).
Each sales team was randomly assigned to the prosocial or
personal bonuses condition. Because teams varied in size, we
randomly selected approximately one-third of team members, and
at a companywide event two weeks after the initial email, we gave
these individuals $22 USD (15 Euros) to spend by the end of the
week. Participants were informed that the funds were provided as
part of a study conducted by independent researchers. On
personal bonus teams, participants who received money were
asked to ‘‘spend it on a bill, expense, or gift for yourself’’ (as in
[62]), whereas on prosocial bonus teams, participants who
received money were instructed to ‘‘spend it on a teammate’’
who was randomly selected from the remaining team members
and specified for each spender. All participants receiving funds to
spend were asked to complete the spending by the end of the week.
While one-third of the salespersons were assigned to be spenders
(i.e. someone given money to spend on themselves or a coworker),
the remaining participants were assigned as receivers (i.e. someone
who received a gift from a coworker) or third-party observers (i.e.
someone not assigned as a spender or receiver). Receivers were not
informed that they would receive a gift from a co-worker. In order
to avoid confusion at the companywide event, participants
assigned to be receivers and third-party observers also received
envelopes with a brief note thanking them for their participation in
the study but they were not informed of the spending manipulation. Everyone was instructed to open the envelopes alone at
home.
At the end of the week, spenders reported how they had used
the money, and receivers were reported whether they had received
any gifts, enabling us to confirm spenders’ reports. The twentyfour salespersons excluded from our study were not eligible to be
spenders or receivers. We provided the company with the funds to
be distributed to the salespersons, who were fully informed that the
study was conducted only by independent researchers, and that
the company would not have access to any of the data.
Team performance. Performance was assessed immediately
before (Time 1) and one month after our spending intervention
(Time 2). Pharmaceutical salespeople promote their product to
physicians, pharmacies, and hospitals, rather than selling directly
to customers. As such, the standard indicator of pharmaceutical
PLOS ONE | www.plosone.org
Results
Experiment 1
Happiness. A preliminary ANOVA confirmed that there
was no difference between conditions in Time 1 happiness, F(2,
130) = .12, p..85, gp2 = .02; we therefore entered experimental
condition into an ANCOVA predicting Time 2 happiness,
controlling for Time 1 happiness. We observed a significant main
effect of condition, F(2, 129) = 5.85, p,.005, gp2 = .08. Follow-up
analyses showed that participants who received a $50 USD charity
voucher reported being significantly happier, t(43) = 5.12, p,.001,
whereas happiness levels were unchanged from Time 1 to Time 2
for those in the control and $25 USD conditions, ts ,1 (Table 2).
Job Satisfaction. As with happiness, a preliminary ANOVA
confirmed that there were no between-group differences in Time 1
job satisfaction, F(2, 130) = .54, p..77, gp2 = .004. Entering
condition into an ANCOVA predicting Time 2 job satisfaction,
controlling for Time 1 job satisfaction, revealed a significant main
effect of condition, F(2, 129) = 3.14, p,.05, gp2 = .05. As with
happiness, participants who received a $50 USD charity voucher
showed an increase in job satisfaction, t(43) = 2.46, p,.02, which
was unchanged for those in the control and $25 USD conditions,
ts,1.19 (Table 2).
Experiment 2a
Spending examples. Participants who received a personal or
prosocial bonus were asked to report how they spent this money.
On personal bonus teams, spenders reported buying items for
themselves such as sportswear, small jewelry, CDs, food, and
alcohol. On prosocial bonus teams, spenders reported buying
items for others such as books, wine, a plant, a stuffed animal, a
piñata and paying a teammate’s sports league fee.
Spending condition and team performance. To confirm
that there were no significant differences in initial performance, we
entered condition (personal bonus vs. prosocial bonus) into an
ANOVA predicting Time 1 performance; this analysis revealed no
significant effect, F(1, 10) = .10, p = .77. As in Experiment 1,
therefore, we entered the same variables into an ANCOVA
predicting Time 2 performance, controlling for Time 1 performance. We found a marginal main effect in the predicted
direction, whereby prosocial bonus teams performed better than
personal bonus teams, F(1, 8) = 3.75, p = .09, gp2 = .32 (Table 3).
Next, we examined the impact of prosocial vs. personal bonuses
on the change in performance from Time 1 to Time 2. In the
prosocial bonuses condition, sports teams showed a large, but
statistically marginally significant increase in performance,
4
September 2013 | Volume 8 | Issue 9 | e75509
Prosocial Bonuses
Table 3. Change in sports and sales team performance between Time 1 and Time 2 as a function of condition (Experiments 2a and
2b).
Time 1
Time 2
Sport Teams
Sales Teams
Sport Teams
Sales Teams
Percentage of
Sales in
Percentage of
Sales in
Games Won
Dollars
Games Won
Dollars
Personal Bonuses
50% (35%)
5761 (3312)
43% (44%)
5776 (3508)
Prosocial Bonuses
50% (55%)
4892 (3184)
81% (31%)
5170 (3343)
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0075509.t003
sample size may explain why the effects are marginal in both
experiments.
Therefore, to more accurately estimate the true effect size of
prosocial bonuses on performance, we conducted a meta-analysis.
Meta-analyses are frequently used to combine the results of two or
more studies, allowing researchers to arrive at more accurate
conclusions than can be presented in a single study [97–100]. This
method is advantageous when several experiments favor the same
result but fail to reach significance due to small sample size [101].
Taking this approach with our data, across Experiments 2a and
2b, we combined the effect sizes for the change from Time 1 to
Time 2 performance in prosocial and personal teams. The metaanalysis revealed that prosocial teams performed significantly
better from Time 1 to Time 2 as revealed by the significant
Z = 2.66, 95% CI (.31, 2.02). We repeated the same analysis for
the change in performance from Time 1 to Time 2 for personal
teams, which revealed a nonsignificant Z = .03, 95% CI (-.67,.88).
These results from the meta-analysis show that the change in
performance from pre- to post-bonuses was significant in prosocial
teams while not significant in personal teams.
t(5) = 1.87, p = .12, d = .76. Meanwhile, in the personal bonuses
condition, there was no evidence for improved performance, t(4)
= 0.39, p = .72, d = .17 (Table 3).
Another way to demonstrate the effectiveness of these interventions is to calculate the return on investment for prosocial and
personal bonuses. On sports teams, every $10 people spent on
themselves led to a two percent decrease in winning percentage,
whereas every $10 spent prosocially led to an 11% increase in
winning percentage.
Experiment 2b
Spending examples. The salespeople who received a personal or prosocial bonus were asked to report how they spent the
allotted funds. On personal bonus teams, spenders reported
buying items for themselves such as food, alcohol and groceries.
On prosocial bonus teams, spenders reported buying items for
others such as gift card, chocolate, wine, and treating a teammate
to lunch.
Spending condition and team performance. As in Experiment 2a, to confirm that there were no significant differences in
initial performance, we entered condition (personal bonus vs.
prosocial bonus) into an ANOVA predicting Time 1 performance;
this analysis revealed no significant effect, F(1, 12) = .24, p = .63.
Therefore, we entered the same variables into an ANCOVA
predicting Time 2 performance, controlling for Time 1 performance. As in Experiment 2b, we found a marginal main effect,
whereby prosocial bonus teams performed better than personal
bonus teams, F(1, 11) = 2.31, p = .16, gp2 = .17 (Table 3).
Although the simple effect should be interpreted with caution
given the very small sample size, closer examination suggests that
prosocial bonuses were effective in improving performance from
Time 1 to Time 2. That is, in the prosocial bonuses condition,
sales teams showed a large and significant increase in performance
from Time 1 to Time 2, t(6) = 2.70, p,.04, d = 1.02. Meanwhile,
in the personal bonuses condition, there was no evidence for a
performance improvement, t(6) = 0.10, p = .92, d = .04 (Table 3).
Once again, it is possible to conceptualize the effectiveness of
these interventions by calculating the return on investment for
prosocial and personal bonuses. On sales teams, for every $10
USD given to a team member to spend on herself, the firm gets
just $3 USD back – a net loss; because sales do not increase with
personal bonuses, personal bonuses are wasted money. In sharp
contrast, for every $10 USD given to a team member to spend
prosocially, the firm reaps $52 USD.
The results of Experiments 2a and 2b are similar; teams that
received prosocial bonuses outperformed teams that were given
personal bonuses. These results emerged despite the logistical and
statistical limitations of samples of team data. Indeed, the small
PLOS ONE | www.plosone.org
Discussion
We offer initial evidence of the causal impact of increasing
prosocial behavior via the provision of prosocial bonuses to
employees at an Australian bank, members of dodge ball teams in
Canada, and pharmaceutical salespeople in Belgium. Taken
together, our studies show that when organizations give employees
the opportunity to spend money on others – whether their coworkers or those in need – both the employees and the company
can benefit, with increased happiness and job satisfaction and even
improved team performance. Specifically, in Experiment 1,
employees who had the opportunity to make a substantial
donation to charity ($50 USD) on behalf of their company
reported enhanced happiness and job satisfaction in the short
term, compared to those in the control condition. In Experiments
2a and 2b, we extended these findings to team performance in the
longer term, showing that teams performed better when participants were assigned to spend money on their fellow team
members than when given a more standard bonus: money to
spend on themselves. Across the studies, we show that prosocial
bonuses can benefit both individuals and teams, on both
psychological and ‘‘bottom line’’ indicators, in both the short
and long-term. Unlike some research suggesting a weak link
between factors that improve job satisfaction and those that
improve job performance [102–104] our results suggest that
prosocial bonuses have a meaningful impact on both metrics.
How might prosocial bonuses lead to increased happiness, job
satisfaction and team performance? Because our studies were
5
September 2013 | Volume 8 | Issue 9 | e75509
Prosocial Bonuses
– whereas our results suggest that the same small sum of money
spent prosocially has a markedly different, and positive, effect.
Related to the above, $25 USD was not sufficient to increase
employee satisfaction in Experiment 1, but the meta-analysis for
Experiments 2a and 2b suggests that $20 USD may be able to
increase team performance. We suggest that this difference is likely
due to the different form that prosocial bonuses took in the two
studies. Recent research suggests that face-to-face giving has a
larger impact on happiness than giving at a distance: not only are
people more likely to donate money to toward single individuals
than to larger organizations [111–112], but the closer the link
between giver and receiver, the bigger the happiness benefits:
people who give money to others are happier when they give faceto-face rather than remotely, and spending money on close friends
leads to more happiness than spending on more distant
acquaintances [113–114]. As a result, it is not surprising that the
same amount of money (,$20 USD) goes further in Experiments
2a and 2b than in Experiment 1, given the social nature of the
team expenditure compared to the relatively impersonal donation
to charity. Perhaps even more importantly, whereas in Experiment
1 employees were givers only, in Experiments 2a and 2b
teammates were both givers and receivers: for every salesperson
who gave a gift, there was a salesperson who received that gift,
likely another contributor to the greater impact of prosocial
bonuses in Experiments 2a and 2b. Importantly, the observed
boost in employee satisfaction and happiness only for the $50 USD
and not for the $25 USD in Study 1 helps rule out the possibility
that our results are simply due to demand effects. Demand effects
should have influenced both of the prosocial donation conditions
(e.g., $25 USD and $50 USD) equally. Thus, if employees felt that
they should be happy after giving, then the boost in happiness
would have been observed across all prosocial spenders, not just
for employees who gave $50.
Our experiments provide preliminary evidence for the potential
utility of prosocial bonuses, though future research is needed.
Given that existing incentive schemes have important drawbacks,
it is worthwhile to consider creative new approaches to incentivizing employees. That said, we assume that prosocial bonuses may
have drawbacks of their own, which future research should
document. In particular, it seems likely that prosocial bonuses
could backfire if they were introduced by companies as a
replacement for more standard bonuses. Because many companies
already allocate funds for charitable giving and employee
entertainment, however, it may be possible for companies to reap
the benefits of prosocial bonuses by providing some of these
existing funds directly to employees, who can then use this money
to make donations to charity or to benefit co-workers—potentially
increasing job satisfaction and performance in the process.
Relatedly, prosocial bonuses were unconditional in our experiments; future research could examine whether bonuses conditional
on performance or based on competition would prove as effective
in increasing job satisfaction and performance.
We opened by noting that recent surveys indicate that job
satisfaction is at a twenty-year low in the United States even as
Americans have come to spend more and more of their time at
work. This additional time at work, of course, often comes at the
expense of devoting time to pursuits known to be linked to wellbeing, from forming social connections to engaging in prosocial
acts such as volunteering [2,115–116]. We suggest that rather than
force employees to make a losing tradeoff between social life and
work life, employers can focus instead on using prosocial bonuses
to create a more altruistic, satisfying, and productive workplace.
conducted in the field, we were unable to conduct extensive
surveys assessing likely mediators of the impact of prosocial
bonuses. While the beneficial impact of prosocial spending on
happiness is well-established [62,86], a key goal for future research
is to explore underlying mechanisms of the prosocial bonusperformance link, with several clear possibilities worthy of
investigation. First, prosocial bonuses may lead to the strengthening of existing relationships and even the formation of new
relationships; such positive interpersonal relationships predict job
engagement [45,46] and job satisfaction [47–49]. Second, and
relatedly, prosocial bonuses might lead to increased cooperation
and cohesiveness between team members, which can improve
team performance in part by encouraging helping behaviors [51–
55]. Finally, prosocial spending may increase general feelings of
reciprocity among members of organizations, leading both to
greater cooperation and punishment of ‘‘shirkers’’ or ‘‘free riders’’
– those employees who are not contributing to the goals of the
organization [105–110].
Along similar lines, future work should examine whether the
impact of prosocial bonuses on team performance is driven by
actions of the spenders, receivers, or a combination of the two.
Since we were not able to measure individual performance in sales
and sports teams, we could not pinpoint whether prosocial bonuses
increased team performance by motivating individual-level contributions or team-level operations. Assessing individual level
contributions would also allow researchers to examine how
additional team members -- who were neither spenders nor
receivers -- respond to this type of intervention. Future experiments that include both prosocial and personal bonuses while
assessing these – and other – constructs will add to our
understanding of the benefits of prosocial bonuses.
We note that Experiment 1 included a prosocial bonus
condition and a control condition but not a personal bonus
condition, whereas Experiments 2a and 2b included prosocial and
personal bonus conditions but not a control condition; in addition,
Experiment 1 included two levels of bonuses, whereas in
Experiments 2a and 2b the bonus amount was kept constant.
These decisions were driven by logistics. Our study sites were not
interested in including a personal bonus in Experiment 1 but did
allow us to include two levels of prosocial bonus; they were
interested in including both personal and prosocial bonuses of a
fixed amount but not a control condition in Experiments 2a and
2b. Of clear interest for future research is more systematic and
comprehensive variation of all of these factors, crossing many
bonus levels with both personal and prosocial bonuses. In addition,
as we noted in Experiment 2, our observations at the team level
are low in number (150 participants become just 25 teams across
Experiments 2a and 2b); scaled-up experiments that utilized more
teams would also build on the ‘‘proof of concept’’ experiments we
present here.
It would be particularly interesting to examine employees’
sensitivity to bonus levels as a function of whether those bonuses
are personal or prosocial. Receiving $10 or $20 for oneself is likely
to lead only to the purchase of one or two additional coffees, and
therefore seems unlikely to impact employee satisfaction or job
performance. Buying a $20 gift for a coworker instead of a $10 gift,
on the other hand, may encourage people to be even more
creative and thoughtful in their gift choice, making the experience
more impactful for both the giver and the receiver – and possibly
leading to a bigger return on investment for the organization.
More broadly, a $10 personal bonus from one’s organization may
seem like a trifling or insufficient reward, leading to a decrease in
motivation [71] – ‘‘I worked all year and they only gave me $10?’’
PLOS ONE | www.plosone.org
6
September 2013 | Volume 8 | Issue 9 | e75509
Prosocial Bonuses
LA LBA MIN EWD JQ. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools:
LA LBA MIN EWD JQ. Wrote the paper: LA LBA MIN EWD JQ.
Author Contributions
Conceived and designed the experiments: LA LBA MIN EWD JQ.
Performed the experiments: LA LBA MIN EWD JQ. Analyzed the data:
References
36. Wrzesniewski A, Dutton JE, Debebe G (2003) Interpersonal sensemaking and
the meaning of work. Res Organ Behav 25: 93–135.
37. Adler PS, Kwon S (2002) Social capital: Prospects for a new concept. Acad
Manage Rev 27: 17–40.
38. Ibarra H (1993) Personal networks of women and minorities in management: A
conceptual framework. Acad Manage Rev 18: 56 – 87.
39. Leana CR, Rousseau DM (2000) Relational wealth: The advantages of stability
in a changing economy. New York: Oxford University Press.
40. Rangan S (2000) The problem of search and deliberation in economic action,
when social networks really matter. Acad Manage Rev 25: 813– 828.
41. Cunningham MR, Barbee AP (2000) Social support. In: Hendrick C, Hendrick
SS, editors. Close relationships: A sourcebook California: Sage Publications
Inc. pp. 273–285.
42. Langston CA (1994) Capitalizing on and coping with daily-life events,
Expressive responses to positive events. J Pers Soc Psychol 67: 1112–1125.
43. Terry DJ, Nielsen M, Perchard L (1993) Effects of work stress on psychological
wellbeing and job satisfaction: The stress-buffering role of coworker support.
Aust J Psychol 45: 168–175.
44. Bishop JW, Scott K (2000) An examination of organizational and team
commitment in a self-directed team environment. J Appl Psycol 85: 439–450.
45. Avery DR, McKay PF, Wilson DC (2007) Engaging the aging workforce: The
relationship between perceived age similarity, satisfaction with coworkers, and
employee engagement. J Appl Psychol 92: 1542–1556.
46. Heaphy ED, Dutton JE (2008) Positive social interactions and the human body
at work: Linking organizations and physiology. Acad Manage Rev 33: 137–
162.
47. Chiaburu D, Harrison D (2008) Do peers make the place? Conceptual synthesis
and meta-analysis of coworker effects on perceptions, attitudes, OCBs, and
performance J Appl Psychol 93: 1082–1103.
48. Morrison R (2004) Information relationships in the workplace, Association with
job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intentions. New Zeal
J Psychol 33: 114–128.
49. Simon LS, Judge TA, Erez A (2008) Capitalizing on positive events at work,
The impact on positive events on mood and job satisfaction. In: Ilies R, Fandre
J, chairs. Effects of work experiences on behavior and well-being Explanatory
mechanisms. Symposium conducted at the annual meeting of the Society for
Industrial & Organizational Psychology. San Francisco, CA.
50. Karau SJ, Williams KD (1997) The effects of group cohesiveness on social
loafing and social compensation. Group Dynam 1: 156–168.
51. Boning B, Ichniowski C, Shaw K (2007) Opportunity Counts: Teams and the
effectiveness of production incentives. J Labor Econ 25: 613–50.
52. Itoh H (1991) Incentives to help in multi-agent situations. Econometrica 59:
611–636.
53. Itoh H (1992) Cooperation in hierarchical organizations, an incentive
perspective. J Law Econ Organ 8: 321–345.
54. Itoh H (1993) Job design and incentives in hierarchies with team production.
Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan: Mimeo.
55. Wageman R, Baker G (1997) Incentives and cooperation, the joint effects of
task and reward interdependence on group performance. J Organ Behav 18:
139–158.
56. Holmstrom B (1979) Moral hazard and observability. Bell J Econ 10: 74–91.
57. DeMatteo JS, Eby LTL, Sandstrom E (1998) Team-Based Rewards, Current
Empirical Evidence and Directions for Future Research. Res Organ Behav 20:
141–183.
58. Mohrman SA, Lawler EE, Mohrman AM (1992) Applying employee
involvement in schools. Educ Eval Policy An 14: 347–360.
59. Warneken F, Tomasello M (2006) Altruistic helping in human infants and
young chimpanzees. Science 311: 1301–1303.
60. Weinstein N, Ryan RM (2010) When helping helps: An examination of
motivational constructs underlying prosocial behavior and their influence on
well-being for the helper and recipient. J Pers Soc Psychol 98: 222–224.
61. Andreoni J (1990) Impure altruism and donations to public goods: A theory of
warm-glow giving. Econ J 100: 464–477.
62. Dunn EW, Aknin LB, Norton MI (2008) Spending money on others promotes
happiness. Science, 319: 1687–1688.
63. Bateman TS, Organ DW (1983) Job satisfaction and the good soldier: The
relationship between affect and employee ‘‘citizenship’’. Acad Manage J 26:
587–595.
64. Grant AM (2008) Designing jobs to do good: Dimensions and psychological
consequences of prosocial job characteristics. J Positive Psychol 3: 19–39.
65. Harrison DA, Newman DA, Roth PL (2006) How important are job attitudes?
Meta-analytic comparisons of integrative behavioral outcomes and time
sequences. Acad Manage J 49: 305–325.
66. Meyer JP, Stanley DJ, Herscovitch L, Topolnytsky L (2002) Affective,
continuance, and normative commitment to the organization: A meta-analysis
of antecedents, correlates, and consequences. J Vocat Behav 61: 20–52.
1. Conference Board (2010) I can’t get no...job satisfaction, that is: America’s
unhappy workers. (Report No. 1459-09-RR).
2. Schor J (1991) The overworked American: The unexpected decline of leisure.
New York: Basic Books.
3. Jurgensen CE (1978) Job preferences (what makes a job good or bad?). J Appl
Psychol 63: 267–276.
4. John G, Weitz B (1989) Salesforce compensation: An empirical investigation of
factors related to use of salary versus incentive compensation. J Marketing Res
26: 1–14.
5. Lazear EP (2000) Performance pay and productivity. National Bureau of
Economic Research.
6. Mueller CW, Price JL (1990) Economic, psychological, and sociological
determinants of voluntary turnover. J Behav Econ 19: 321–335.
7. Paarsch H, Shearer B (2000) Piece rates, fixed wages, and incentive effects,
Statistical evidence from payroll records. Int Econ Rev 41: 59 – 92.
8. Parent D (1999) Methods of pay and earnings, a longitudinal analysis. Ind
Labor Relat Rev 53: 71–86.
9. Sager JK, Futrell CM, Varadarajan R (1989) Exploring salesperson turnover: A
causal model. J Bus Res 18: 303–326.
10. Eisenberger R, Rhoades L, Cameron J (1999) Does pay for performance
increase or decrease perceived self determination and intrinsic motivation? J
Pers Soc Psychol 77: 1026 –1040.
11. Greene CN (1973) Causal connections among managers’ merit pay, job
satisfaction, and performance. J Appl Psychol 58: 95–100.
12. Miceli MP, Jung I, Near JP, Greenberger DB (1991) Predictors and outcomes
of reactions to pay-for-performance plans. J Appl Psychol 76: 508 –521.
13. Smith PL, Smits SJ, Hoy F (1992) Human resource policies in small firms,
Linkages to employee satisfaction. Appl Hum Resour Manage Res 3: 1–19.
14. Ewing BT (1996) Wages and performance-base pay: Evidence from the NLSY.
Econ Lett 51: 241–246.
15. Green C, Heywood JS (2008) Does performance pay increase job satisfaction?
Economica 75: 710–728.
16. MacLeod WB, Parent D (1998) Job characteristics and the form of
compensation. In: Polacheck S, editor. Res in Lab Econ. California: JAI
Press. pp. 177–242.
17. Oettinger GS (2001) Do piece rates influence effort choices? Evidence from
stadium Vendors. Econ Lett 73: 117–123.
18. Stajkovic AD, Luthans F (2001) Differential effects of incentive motivators on
work performance. Acad Manage J 44: 580–590.
19. Ariely D, Gneezy U, Loewenstein G, Mazar N (2009) Large stakes and big
mistakes. Rev Econ Stud 76: 451–469.
20. Oyer P (1998) Fiscal year ends and nonlinear incentive contracts: The effect on
business seasonality. Quart J Econ 113: 149–185.
21. Drago R, Turnbull GK (1988) Individual and group piece rates under team
technologies. J Jpn Int Econ 2: 1–10.
22. Lazear EP (1989) Pay Equality and Industrial Politics. J Polit Econ 97: 561–
580.
23. Bloom M (1999) The performance effects of pay dispersion on individuals and
organizations. Acad Manage J 42: 25–40.
24. Gardner T (1999) When pay for performance works too well: The negative
impact of pay dispersion. Acad Manage Exec 13: 101–103.
25. Grant AM, Christianson MK, Price RH (2007) Happiness, health, or
relationships? Managerial practices and employee well-being tradeoffs. Acad
Manage P 21: 51–63.
26. Drago R, Turnbull GK (1987) An analysis of non-insurance work incentives.
Econ Lett 23: 301–304.
27. Cohen SG, Bailey DE (1997) What makes teams work: Group effectiveness
research from the shop floor to the executive suite. J Manage 23: 239–290.
28. Grant AM (2007) Relational job design and the motivation to make a prosocial
difference. Acad Manage Rev 32: 393–417.
29. Hamman J, Rick S, Weber RA (2007) Solving coordination failure with ‘‘all-ornone’’ group-level incentives. Exp Econ 10: 285–303.
30. Barry B, Crant JM (2000) Dyadic communication relationships in organizations: An attribution/expectancy approach. Organ Sci 11: 648 – 664.
31. Bradbury H, Bergmann Lichtenstein BM (2000) Relationality in organizational
research: Exploring the space between. Organ Sci 11: 551–564.
32. Gersick CJG, Bartunek JM, Dutton JE (2000) Learning from academia: The
importance of relationships in professional life. Acad Manage J 43: 1026 –1044.
33. Kahn WA (1990) Psychological conditions of personal engagement and
disengagement at work. Acad Manage J 33: 692–724.
34. Kahn W (1998) Relational systems at work. Res Organ Behav 20: 39 –76.
35. Kozlowski SWJ, Bell BS (2003) Work groups and teams in organizations. In:
Borman WC, Ilgen DR, Klimoski RJ, editors. Handbook of psychology:
Industrial and organizational psychology. London: John Wiley & Sons Inc. pp.
333–375.
PLOS ONE | www.plosone.org
7
September 2013 | Volume 8 | Issue 9 | e75509
Prosocial Bonuses
67. Gneezy U, Meier S, Rey-Biel P (2011) When and how incentives (don’t) work
to modify behavior? J Econ Perspect 25: 1–21.
68. Gneezy U, Rustichini A (2000) Pay enough or don’t pay at all. Q J Econ 115:
791–810.
69. Ariely D, Bracha A, Meier S (2009) Doing good or doing well? Image
motivation and monetary incentives in behaving prosocially. Am Econ Rev 99:
544–555.
70. Heyman J, Ariely D (2004) Effort for payment: A tale of two markets. Psychol
Sci 15: 787–793.
71. Goldstein NJ, Griskevicius V, Cialdini RB (2011) Reciprocity by proxy: A novel
influence strategy for stimulating cooperation. Admin Sci Quart 56: 441–473.
72. Judge TA, Klinger R (2008) Job satisfaction: Subjective well-being at work. In:
Eid M, Larsen R, editors. The Science of Subjective Well-Being. New York:
Guilford Publications. pp. 393–413.
73. Locke EA (1976) The nature and causes of job satisfaction. In: Dunnette MD,
editor. Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Chicago:
Rand-McNally. pp. 1319–1328.
74. Bruck CS, Allen TD, Spector PE (2002) The relationship between work–family
conflict and job satisfaction: A finer-grained analysis. J Vocat Behav 60: 336–
353.
75. Chen G, Casper WJ, Cortina JM (2001) The roles of self-efficacy and task
complexity in the relationships among cognitive ability, conscientiousness, and
task performance: A meta-analytic examination. Hum Perform 14: 209–230.
76. Chen G, Gully SM, Eden D (2001) Validation of a new general self-efficacy
scale. Org Res Method 4: 62–83.
77. Judge TA, Bono JE (2001) Relationship of core self-evaluations traits—selfesteem, generalized self-efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability—with
job satisfaction and job performance, a meta analysis. J Appl Psychol 86: 80–
92.
78. Weaver CN (1980) Job satisfaction in the United States in the 1970s. J Appl
Psychol 65: 364–367.
79. Bedeian AG, Armenakis AA (1981) A path-analysis experiment of the
consequences of role conflict and ambiguity. Acad Manage J 24: 95–112.
80. Fried Y, Ferris GR (1987) The validity of the job characteristics model: A
review and meta-analysis. Personnel Psychol 40: 287–322.
81. Gross N, Mason WS, McEachern AW (1958) Explorations in role analysis.
New York: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
82. Hackman RJ, Lawler EE III (1971) Employee reactions to job characteristics. J
Appl Psychol 55: 259–286.
83. Haynes K (1979) Job satisfaction of mid-management social workers. Admin
Soc Work 3: 207–217.
84. Rizzo JR, House RJ, Lirtzman SI (1970) Role conflict and ambiguity in
complex organizations. Admin Sci Quart 15: 150–163.
85. Watson D, Clark LA, Tellegen A (1988) Development and validation of brief
measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. J Pers Soc Psychol
54: 1063–1070.
86. Dunn EW, Ashton-James CE, Hanson MD, Aknin LB (2010) On the costs of
self-interested economic behavior: How does stinginess get under the skin? J
Health Psychol 15: 627–633.
87. Kahneman D, Krueger AB, Schkade D, Schwarz N, Stone AA (2006) Would
you be happier if you were richer? A focusing illusion. Science: 312: 1908–
1910.
88. Oishi S, Kesebir S, Diener E (2011) Income inequality and happiness. Psychol
Sci 22: 1095–1100.
89. Cammann C, Fichman M, Jenkins GD Jr, Klesh JR (1983) Assessing the
attitudes and perceptions of organizational members. In: Lawler EE III, Mirvis
PH, Cammann C, Seashore S, editors. Assessing organizational change: A
guide to methods, measures, and practices. New York: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
pp. 71–138.
PLOS ONE | www.plosone.org
90. Ironson GH, Smith PC, Brannick MT, Gibson WM, Paul KB (1989)
Construction of a job in general scale: A comparison of global, composite,
and specific measures. J Appl Psychol 74: 193–200.
91. Kunin T (1955) The construction of a new type of attitude measure. Personnel
Psychol 8: 65–78.
92. Wanous JP, Reichers AE, Hudy MJ (1997) Overall job satisfaction: How good
are single-item measures? J Appl Psychol 82: 247–252.
93. Judge TA, Bono JE (2000) Five-factor model of personality and transformational leadership. J Appl Psychol 85: 751–765.
94. Schmidt FL, Hunter J (2004) General mental ability in the world of work:
Occupational attainment and job performance. J Pers Soc Psychol 86: 162–
173.
95. Vinchur A, Schippmann J, Switzer F, Roth P (1998) A meta-analytical review
of predictors of job performance for sales people. J Appl Psychol 82: 30–43.
96. Wright TA, Cropanzano R (2000) Psychological well-being and job satisfaction
as predictors of job performance. J Occup Health Psychol 5: 84–94.
97. Cook TD, Leviton LC (1980) Reviewing the literature: A comparison of
traditional methods with meta-analysis1. J Pers 48: 449–472.
98. Rosenthal R, DiMatteo MR (2001) Meta-analysis: Recent developments in
quantitative methods for literature reviews. Annu Rev Psychol 52: 59–82.
99. Smith ML, Glass GV, Miller TI (1980) The benefits of psychotherapy.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
100. Twenge JM, Catanese KR, Baumeister RF (2002) Social exclusion causes selfdefeating behavior. J Pers Soc Psychol 83: 606–615.
101. Rosenthal R (1991) Meta-analytic procedures for social research. Sage.
102. Brayfield AH, Crockett WH (1955) Employee attitudes and employee
performance. Psychol Bull 52: 396–424.
103. Iaffaldano MT, Muchinsky PM (1985) Job satisfaction and job performance: A
meta-analysis. Psychol Bull 97: 251–273.
104. Judge TA, Thoresen CJ, Bono JE, Patton GK (2001). The job satisfaction job
performance relationship: A qualitative and quantitative review. Psychol Bull
127: 376–407.
105. Akerlof GA, Kranton RE (2005) Identity and the economics of organizations. J
Econ Perspect 19: 9–32.
106. Boyd R, Gintis H, Bowles S, Richerson PJ (2003) Evolution of altruistic
punishment. P Natl Acad Sci 100: 3531–3535.
107. Carpenter J (2007) Punishing free-riders: How group size affects mutual
monitoring and the provision of public goods. Game Econ Behav 60: 31–51.
108. Carpenter J, Bowles S, Gintis H, Hwang S (2009) Strong reciprocity and team
production. J Econ Behav Organ 71: 221–232.
109. Fehr E, Gächter S (2000) Cooperation and punishment. Am Econ Rev 90:
980–994.
110. Fuster A, Meier S (2010) Another hidden cost of incentives: The detrimental
effect on norm enforcement. Manage Sci 56: 57–70.
111. Kogut T, Ritov I (2007) One of us: Outstanding willingness to help save a
single identified compatriot. Organ Behav Hum Dec 104: 150–157.
112. Small DA, Loewenstein G (2003) Helping a victim or helping the victim:
Altruism and identifiability. J Risk Uncertainty 26: 5–16.
113. Aknin LB, Dunn EW, Sandstrom GM, Norton MI (2012) Putting the ‘‘social’’
in prosocial spending: Social contact as a catalyst for turning good deeds into
good feelings. In press.
114. Aknin LB, Sandstrom GM, Dunn EW, Norton MI (2011) It’s the recipient that
counts: Spending money on strong social ties leads to greater happiness than
spending on weak social ties. PLoS ONE, 6: e17018.
115. Putnam R (2000) Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American
Community. New York: Simon and Schuster.
116. Thoits PA, Hewitt LN (2001) Volunteer work and well-being. J Health Soc
Behav 42: 115–.
8
September 2013 | Volume 8 | Issue 9 | e75509